Brother's Story
by dragonkeeper19600
Summary: "I never meant for this to happen. None of it was ever supposed to be. But I was blind and did not wish to see. And now my punishment is to always remember that night... The night my brother became a stranger... And the world went up in flames."
1. Chapter 1

_**Brother's Story**_

**Part 1**

_I knew it was him._

_A part of me had known right from the start. The strange deaths, the bizarre disappearances, I knew it was all _his _doing. But I didn't want to believe it. What I really wanted to do was close my eyes and shut my ears, to shut out the evidence that was screaming right at my face. But I couldn't avoid it forever. And when the fires started, when I heard the explosions and the screams, some of terror, some of ecstasy, and saw the flickering orange lights and heard the sounds of buildings crumbling and death flinging itself against everything, I knew I could sit in ignorance no longer. Whether or not it was him, I had to know. If it wasn't him, I would fall on my knees and thank Primus, thank Primus for not making this my fault. But if it was him, than I was the only one who could stop this. _

_I had promised myself, after all._

_I dashed outside the apartment and stared up at the fire, my mouth hanging open. Dear Primus, there wasn't going to be anything left! The fire roared and whirled in the buildings up ahead. Just the sound of it spoke to me of ruin and death, the hissing and anguished snarls of burning. Windows were cracking, either from the heat or from the mob outside, who were throwing oil barrels, gas tanks, shards of metal from the crumbling streets, even parts of their own bodies if there was nothing else into the burning buildings. I saw an arm fly into the air, shadowed black against the bright red and orange backdrop, and hurtle itself down into the government building below. There were more screams of terror from inside, followed by the jeering roar of laughter and approval from the crowd. And there was a crowd. Possibly hundreds of people all gathered around to watch the Autobot officials burn._

_I knew why these people wanted the Autobots to die. I had lived their reasons. The Autobots ran the government of Cybertron and had had the same leader for ages. The same leader who made it impossible for non-Autobots to get good job, good houses, go to good schools. There was poverty everywhere and if you were the wrong kind of person, maybe a Seeker, for instance, you were mocked and ridiculed wherever you went. Some people even died in acts of violence spurned by hatred. _

_Now the tables had turned, and it was the commoners who were gathered around the Autobots, taunting, while they died trapped and aflame inside. _

_I stepped off of the porch and ran towards the inferno; there was no time for hesitation. I pushed myself past the thronging crowd. Some people saw me and their mouths popped open in surprise. They paused in their revelry to watch me run by, shocked. Some people looked glad to see me. Complete strangers would throw their arms around my shoulders, laughing, and thickly say things like, "Hey, kid! You see that? See the blue eyes burn? See their sparks rising up? Watch them burn up, the fraggers." I got a good whiff of energon off one of them. Over-energized, I expect. I shoved them off me and kept running through the crowd, holding my hand over my optics. People kept stopping me, wanting me to celebrate with them or just to gawk. I ran past all of them, apologizing as I went. I had to find _him. _I had to find him. And no one was going to get in my way. _

_I was appalled, as I ran. I felt sick to my stomach by the way they could joke and drink and be merry while building a pyre for the people screaming inside. But I couldn't hate them. Not completely. I understood their pain because I was one of them._

_There's a name for people like me. They called us, "Street Cleaners." It was a name I had to endure my entire life; I heard it spoken to me from porches, from windows, from the inside of moving ships. I'd heard it with every possible infliction, yelled with spite and hatred, called with jeering laughter, spoken softly with pity, muttered sideways as an explanation to a friend, to a customer who bumped into me trying to leave a store, to a child. To a child! That's the absolute worst. Having a parent explain to a child how worthless you are. How you don't have a future and will never have one and having to endure the following stare of pity and curiosity that comes from those wide, child-eyes. I always ran away after seeing those eyes. They were eyes that told me I was nothing._

_The way it was used on Cybertron, "Street Cleaner" was a name for someone who was nobody, someone who had nothing, not money, not a home, someone who had to live in the street, feeding off the leftovers of society to survive._

_Someone like me._

_My parents left a long time ago and left me suddenly an orphan. Now, the only one I've had to take care of me is myself. That was the way my life worked. I cared for me._

_Well, not just me._

_I turned a corner and saw more buildings, some just beginning to smoke. The fire hadn't had time to feed properly yet. There others celebrating here, but most of the people thronging the street were just ordinary Transformers, not part of the crowd at all. They were mostly just trying to get away. They fled, the ones who could fly in vehicle mode, screaming as they went. The screams seemed to delight the people who were cheering. They laughed and pushed and made as if to grab at the Transformers whizzing by. Then they starting singing an obscene song. I ran past them, pumping my fist nervously as I did, so that they would I think I was one of them, and darted around another corner, their drunken song following me as I left. One of them, I noticed, was a Seeker. Half of one of his wings was missing. Did he break it off to toss into the fire or had someone else broken it off before? There was no way of knowing._

_I turned a few more corners and ran a little more ways. I was getting deeper into the Autobot complex, and there were fewer and fewer people as I went along. I knew they would come here eventually, but for now the flickering lights of the fires were distant, and the chanting of the crowd was reduced to a murmur of distant sound. I whirled around the square, searching desperately for him. Was I too early? Was he not here yet? _

_Suddenly, there was an explosion close by, followed by a roar of delight from the mob. I turned in the direction of the sound. I could see a new pillar of smoke rising from the now shattered roof of one of the buildings. The pillar was directly northwest from where I was. I knew that if I turned the corner, I would see the building right in front of me._

_I also knew that that was where he was. _

_There was no time to wait. I had to catch up with him before he moved on. I ran in the direction of the new smoke pillar, bracing my wings as I did so.

* * *

_

_There have been stories all over the news about a new "trouble-maker."_

_They told us all kinds of things about him. He's a rogue, a complete mystery, untrustworthy and dangerous. He's extremely ambitious, seeking to undermine everything that our revered leader, Sentinel Prime, has sought to build. He's a gang-leader, a murderer, who wants to build an army and conquer all of Cybertron in the name of criminals and outcasts._

_Of course, everyone knows that the Cybertronian news is controlled by the Autobots. As a Street Cleaner, I lived among the people that the nets were condemning as "criminals and outcasts," and I knew what was really going on._

_Apparently, there was some sort of rebel leader that had recently begun popping up on Cybertron. He was calling himself "Megatron," and his followers were known as "Decepticons." He claimed that he sought to liberate all of Cybertron, meaning that he wanted to completely redo the government, revise all the policies, make sure everyone has equal opportunities, and basically completely rework the system to benefit "us." It all _sounds _wonderful, and he'd already built up a pretty solid block of followers. But it wasn't his goals that worried me. It was how he was reaching those goals._

_Apparently, this "Megatron" character didn't believe in negotiation._

_It all started a few months ago with Scalpel's death. Scalpel was a medic who lived in our sector. I say "medic" in the very loosest sense of the term because it was a well-known fact to street cleaners like me that Scalpel had lost his license to practice medicine long ago. He worked as a doctor for both people who were too poor and too stupid to go to anyone else. They would walk in; he'd fix them up, cheap, and then send them back out later. He was the kind of person who always had a really oily smile. He stopped a little and rubbed his hands together for customers and only ever said nice things to people._

_But a story that involved Scalpel never had a happy ending._

_Sometimes a customer would walk out feeling great, and then a week later they would start falling apart, the extra part that they needed rusted through and inadequate. Or maybe the parts that were already in the customer were exceptionally rare or valuable, and the customer, during the course of the procedure, would mysteriously lose parts. Or maybe the money taken from their account was a little more than was needed for the treatment they wanted. Or maybe a customer went in for a little check-up, and Scalpel pulled a plug somewhere, whether purposely or by accident, no one ever found out, and suddenly the customer was dead, and the remnant of their spark was seeping out their chest. I've heard a lot of stories like that. I'm one of the people whose lost a part to him._

_The worst, though, are the things I used to hear about children. He'd beckon to kids who came close to his shop, wearing his oily smile and stooping over in his little bow. They would walk in and never walk out. Over the course of the next week there would be a significant rise on the black market for spare parts. _

_So there was a lot of relief and absolutely no sadness when it was reported in the news net that Scalpel was found dead, lying in an alleyway in a pool of his own motor oil. Apparently, someone had taken him to the roof of a building nearby and severely injured him before pushing him off to his death. The police gave a half-hearted search for the murderer, but he was never found. _

_I was glad about Scalpel's death, I really was. But it worried me. Who would've done this thing? Who would have the guts to? What if it was someone who didn't care about justice, who just wanted to kill him just because? What if more murders happened, this time with not so evil people?_

_Sure enough, over the course of the next few months, more deaths occurred. An Autobot who was known as an avid hater of Seekers was found shot to death, hanging off a flagpole on the side of a building. A cop who made a habit of beating people was found burned to a crisp in a dumpster, both of his legs sawed off and thrown in a heap on top of him. An Autobot soldier turned murderer was found in a sitting position under the flag near one of the Autobot Boot Camps with a huge stab wound in his chest, right through the middle of his spark chamber. _

_And the killer was getting bolder, killing more and more important people on a larger and larger scale. Suddenly, he came out in public, revealing himself as Megatron and telling the whole world his plans to ruin the Autobots and make this age "ours."_

_We didn't have a tele, so I had never seen Megatron, nor even heard his voice, but suddenly he was everywhere. Everyone was talking about him. They were hailing him as a hero, a champion for the weak and a defender of justice and honor. The picture of integrity. They turned him into an idol. Some people were fanatics. They shouted his name to the sky like he was a god, sometimes on their knees, weeping, and everytime he killed someone knew or went on a raid like tonight, they were there._

_These were the people who wanted him to take over as a dictator. _

_There had been other raids before the one tonight, but this one was the biggest. Tonight, a whole sector of official buildings would be burned to ashes. That was the promise, and Megatron was right around the corner, delivering that promise._

_

* * *

_

_I turned the corner into the square and saw Megatron. He had moved on from the smoking building to the one next door. His back was to me. There were some other people with him, some of his followers I suspected. One of them handed him something; I couldn't see what it was. I heard a sound like a small clink of metal and then a beep, and then the object was in the air, making an arc high against the smoky sky. I didn't see it come down, but suddenly there was a bang and a rumble and a fire billowed out of the top of the building in front of them, the orange flames reaching high above the roof. The distant crowd cheered wildly. This fire was exceptionally bright, and it cast the group in front of me into dark silhouettes._

_I knew that it was Megatron in front of me. That fact seemed obvious. The Decepticons wouldn't look at anyone else with that kind of simpering, adoring look. But there was still room for me to doubt that it might be _him. _As long as I didn't know who Megatron really was, there was still room left in my spark to doubt. I clung on to that small, impossible hope._

_But I couldn't cling forever. I had to be sure. My mind would never rest until I knew whether or not it was him._

_I took a step forward. "Metalwing?" I called hoarsely._

_Megatron started and I felt my spark plunge down into my stomach and chills of horror break out on my neck. If Megatron wasn't him, then that name wouldn't have meant anything to him. There was no longer any hope left for doubt._

_My younger brother turned around to face me. _

_He had changed so much. Metalwing, the brother of my memories, looked almost nothing like this half-soldier, half-assassin that stood before me now. He was so much _bigger _now. His wings were not thin and weak like they had been before, but broad and powerful. His voice had grown deeper, too. And now that he was out in the raid with his followers, there were two shoulder cannons mounted on each side of his neck and he wore two swords with jagged blades on his waist._

_And yet, I could still see traces of Metalwing in this person in front of me. His eye color was the same, the deep, crimson red prisms, a trait he inherited from our father. The shape of his face was vaguely the same, and when he saw me, his eyes widened in the familiar way they did when he was surprised._

_"Brother?" he whispered, shocked._

_That was what he called me. I was far older than he and had raised him. He knew me by no other name._

_The three that he had with him were confused. "'Brother?'" they repeated dumbly. "Megatron, do you know this guy? You have a _brother?"

_He ignored all of them. He took a step forward. "What are you doing here?" he asked. The surprise had started to fade from his face, and he was smiling. There was an embarrassment there in his features, as if he were a little kid who'd been caught doing something he shouldn't and knew he owed an explanation. I couldn't believe it. The thing he was guilty about was _not telling me what he was doing! _He didn't regret everything else at all. I could tell, just by looking at his eyes._

_I felt completely numb. I stayed where I was. "I just..." I stammered, trying to find words. "I… I saw the flames…" _

_"Ah," he said. His smile was a little sheepish. "I'm sorry, Brother. I know I should've told you, but I didn't know how to explain."_

_"Megatron, sir," murmured a woman standing next to him. _

_He held out a hand to her. "It's quite alright," he said. I felt myself reeling. Sir! Someone was calling my younger brother, "sir"! Nothing felt real anymore._

_He looked back up at me, still waiting for my reaction. When I said nothing, he turned back to the fire. "Isn't it wonderful, Brother?" he asked, over the crackle of the flames. "I did this. His smile was serene. "I did everything. It's all because of me. Isn't it wonderful? Things are finally going to change." He was looking at me expectantly. He thought I was proud of him._

_I should've thought about what to say. I should have run over every possible reaction in my mind before I spoke. But it felt like my CPU had shut down. I could barely think. This is what I said:_

_"Are you mad?"_

_That was all. I said it with my eyes wide, with the chills of horror erupting all over me. I wasn't seeing my brother standing in front of me. I was seeing the towering flames, the murders, one by one, replaying in front of me, the crowd outside, cheering and singing, feeding the fire with parts of their bodies. Metalwing, my Metalwing, had done all that? He'd done _everything? _No. No, it couldn't be true! It couldn't be!_

_My brother's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously._

_"What... What have you done?" I choked. "What have you done? You did all this? You killed all those people? You started all these fires? You've been parading around Cybertron like some sort of god, like a messiah, while you were committing all these murders? Are you mad?" I felt my voice rising, I was shouting now, maybe thinking that the volume of my voice would make all of this not true. "Why? Why are you doing this? What the pit are you thinking?"_

_My brother was no longer smiling. His red optics flickered in the firelight. "I'm recreating Cybertron's future. All those people I killed deserved to die. Have you forgotten what it was like for us, what it is like for them? To wake up each day not knowing if you would be able to go to sleep that night or if you would be dead and rotting in a dumpster? Have you forgotten how you could barely scrape up the money just to get enough fuel to keep us running for one more day? You always told me that things needed to change, that the future would someday hold a promise for us, that we would no longer have to live in fear or poverty. Well now, I intend to carve that future, by whatever means necessary, but it seems that my dear brother has forgotten!"_

_"Traitor!" screamed the woman next to him. Her voice was shrill. It pierced my already ringing ears. "Blood traitor! You are a shame to the entire Decepticon cause!"_

_"Stay out of this!" he snapped at her. "This is a private matter!"_

_"Brother, listen to me," I said. I was no longer shouting. I was pleading. "You don't have to do this. Things can change another way. You don't have to result to all this violence. We can find another way."_

_"There is no other way," he said, scowling at me. Then suddenly, his face softened. "Brother," he said quietly, "Can't you see? I'm finally going to create that new world, that new future that you always spoke of. Everything I'm doing now, everything I've worked so hard to build, it's all been for you! The reason I've been able to accomplish all of this is because of you!" His face hardened again, and he looked at me through narrowed eyes, as if he was seeing me for the first time in his life. "I thought you, you of all people, would be able to understand! But you can't understand at all! You're just a coward!"_

_I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Metalwing. Metalwing. What happened to you?_

_My thoughts flew back, back in time, throughout all the millennia that I had known my brother, all the time I had watched him grow, trying to see how this could've happened, trying to see what could've gone wrong. I flipped desperately through the memories, looking for something, anything that would tell me why this was happening. Anything that would make this not my fault._

_What did I do wrong? The memories flickered, it was as if my very life was passing before my eyes. I saw myself, sitting on the roof of a skyscraper with my mother, her telling me that maybe it was time she made me a sibling. I saw my father, years later, strike me across the face before he and my mother were gone, gone forever. I saw the way my brother was then, only a protoform, so tiny. There was a point where I could scoop him up and cup him in the palm of my hand. I saw us huddled together in an alleyway, him snuggled up against my plumage, desperately trying to keep warm. I saw myself sick, maybe with fatigue, maybe with injury, or maybe after breaking down from the terrible lifestyle we were forced to lead. I had collapsed, thinking that I couldn't faint, I couldn't because oh Primus oh Primus how was Metalwing going to know where I was if I was unconscious? I remembered a few days later, waking up and finding that a joint from my arm was missing and Metalwing bending over me, looking furious, vowing to catch Scalpel one day, informing me that he had screamed at him as he ran off. I could still hear his mock-screaming in my head. "Don't you come back! Don't you ever come back! Because if you do, I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"_

_Then my mind froze. There was one memory. One memory that now stood out from the rest._

_It was many years ago. We were inside an upgrade shop, me standing in front of the engineer who worked there, Metalwing at my heels. He was still just a protoform then, his body made of liquid metal. Protoform shells could grow on their own to a certain extent, but Metalwing's had stopped. But even though his body had stopped growing, his spark had not. He had to get his body upgraded to a bigger size before his spark outgrew him because if it did… I really didn't want to think about it._

_The only problem was, we didn't have enough money. We never did. And a full body upgrade, especially for a protoform, was incredibly expensive. I remembered, the engineer had told us that he wouldn't do it. He had looked down at Metalwing with the gaze of a mechanic looking at a machine that won't work, then looked up at me, square into my eyes, and said that he didn't do nothing for free. Either I get my lazy bum off the street and get a job like a real man or get out. And take your little toy with you, you freak. I remembered staring into his green eyes and seeing nothing but disregard there. In my mind, my father's image had flashed through my head. I felt this unbelievable heat course through my circuitry, clenching my fists, turning my vision red. Through the dark red haze, there was only one clear thought in my head: We need that upgrade. We need it now._

_So I unsheathed my talons and clamped my hand around his throat, letting each sharp point dig into the metal. My teeth were clenched, grinding against each other with dull screeches and crunches. I remembered now, though I barely noticed at the time, Metalwing looking up at me curiously, while the engineer's optics opened wide with fear and his mouth fell open. _

_"Listen," I hissed. "We came in here for one thing: for that upgrade. He needs it, you understand? He needs it. If we leave here without it, he might die. He _will _die. What part of that is so hard for you to understand?"_

_His hands had flown up to my arm, trying to pry my claws off of his neck. But he lived a cushioned existence, never having to fight to survive, and so I was stronger than he. "Look, buddy," he choked, his voice compressed by my grip, "I ain't no medic, here. I have rights. You don't have the money, you don't get nothing. I have half a mind to call the police on you."_

_"You can't call anyone if you're dead," I had hissed. I slammed his back into the wall, pinning him there, still only dimly aware of Metalwing watching me silently._

_"You will do this upgrade," I had growled, making every word a threat. "You'll do it today, and you'll do it right, exactly the way I ask. If you get anything wrong. If _he," _I flicked my head in Metalwing's direction, "is harmed in any way, I'll know. And I'll find you."_

_"The. Police." He had gagged on the words, his eyes rolling with panic. "I'll. Call. The. Police!"_

_"Go ahead and call them," I had said, trying to make it sound as if it didn't matter to me whether they were here or not. "It won't matter. They haven't caught us yet; they won't catch me before I'm done with you. And by then it won't matter to you whether they've caught me or not, will it?"_

_He had cast his eyes around the room wildly, looking for some invisible hand to come to his aid. I could feel his fear through my clenched hand. It made me feel uneasy, being the source of his fear, but there was no time to feel guilty. My brother's life was at stake._

_I could tell he was flipping through his options, seeing if there was some way he could send me off without me tearing him limb from limb. He was definitely seeing that as a possibility. Once again, my thoughts were not clicking together coherently. All I could think was, _He's taking too long. _So I gripped him tighter and slammed him against the wall a second time. I didn't want to give him time to relax while he was in my grip. "I'm getting impatient," I hissed._

_"Alright!" he gasped, his hands groping uselessly against my arm. "Alright! I'll do it! I'll upgrade the kid! Just… Just…" He didn't finish. I'd clenched my fist in victory and cut off his voice completely. _

_I felt a cold hand wrap around my spark. I had rendered him speechless. I little more and I might kill him. But I still let none of my remorse show through. I unclenched my hand and stepped back from him, trying to make the movement as smooth and effortless and possible. The engineer dropped to his knees and clutched at his now torn and dented throat. A spurt of energon dribbled over his lips. He gagged there for a while before looking up at me. "What… What are you going to pay me?" he whispered. He looked up at me, terrified. Never in my worst nightmares had I ever imagined anyone looking at me with that much fear._

_I could have stopped there. It was enough that he had agreed to help Metalwing. That was all I had really wanted. I could have stopped. But I didn't. I held my hand out in front of my face and reactivated my talons, bathing all three of us in their yellow glow. For good measure, I also activated my wings. From the generators on my back, they spread out and fanned the air in the room, making the walls hum with their energy. They glowed a cool, transparent blue, but unlike the glow of my talons, which cast pools of light over everything near them, my wings glowed with the kind of light that seemed to draw energy from the space around it. They rendered me in shadow. The shadow of the blue against the glow of my talons… I had frightened many a cop with that image._

_"With your life," I had whispered. His life. That would be his payment. Not only was I forcing someone to help us, I was forcing them to do it for free._

_"Okay!" he had said, cringing back in fear. "Okay! I'll go and set everything up! Just…" he was backing away, crawling on his heels and the back of his legs. "Just, please! Don't hurt me!" He got up and bolted then, leaving flecks of energon on the floor in a trail behind him. The light in the back room came on. _

_I deactivated my wings and sheathed my claws and sighed. Something in me had deflated as soon as he ran from the room. I put my hand up to my forehead, as if to feel that it was still there, then, to my surprise, I started laughing. I was _laughing. _The exact wrong reaction. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't believe that I had pulled that off._

_Just then, I felt something pat against my leg. I looked down. Metalwing was there at my heels, Primus he was so small then, not even to my knee, looking up at me in that way he did whenever he had a question. He looked worried. I got down on one knee and did my best to smile at him. "It's okay, Brother," I said touching his forehead with my hand. "Everything's gonna be okay. I took care of it. That guy in there's going to fix you up."_

_I could tell that that wasn't the question. Metalwing kept looking at me with that same concerned, quizzical look. "Brother?" he asked softly. "That guy was bleeding."_

_I felt my smile evaporate. "Yeah," I said quietly "Yeah, he was."_

_"You really hurt him," he informed me._

_"I know," I said. What else was there to say? "I know."_

_"Brother?" he prompted. "Is it really okay to treat people like that?"_

_I felt myself stiffen, both in the memory and in the present day, with the inferno swirling all around me and Megatron glaring at me with hatred in his red eyes…_

_I remembered being stricken by that question. He had no idea how close to the mark that was. I sighed and placed my hand against his shoulder, so tiny, and calmly told him the words I now know I will always regret:_

_"Brother… Sometimes when we need something, really need something, we can't think of whether it's 'right' or 'wrong.' We do what we must to survive. I know that it's frightening, and I'm not proud of it, but just now, I couldn't think about that. All I… all _we _can afford to think about right now is what we need and how we can get it. It's the only way we can obtain anything._

_"It's the only way we can survive."_

_The memory ended. Nothing was left in its place. There was nothing, nothing in my mind, nothing in my spark. All that was there was a swirling numbness. Those words. Those words. Those fragging, fragging words. _I _had said that to him. _I _had. The speech I had given him as a child was now serving as the logic he used to justify everything he had done. The fires. The explosions. The people drinking and singing. The lone arm, severed and lifeless, flung high against the backdrop of the flames. All of that. "Isn't it wonderful, Brother?"_

"We do what we must to survive."

_Something inside of me collapsed. I sank to my knees, my eyes fixed on the sky. What an odd sky it was. The stars that should have been shining were being choked by the black and gray smoke. Tiny embers, like the points of light reflected in a pair of optics, flew into the gray mass and lit it briefly. Everything was swirling and moving angrily. I knew I wasn't thinking clearly. My brother had become a mass murderer, and I was looking at the sky. But I couldn't help it. The cold hand had found me again, and now the numbness swirled inside me with the strength of a thousand pillars of smoke._

My fault. _My fault. This was my fault. I had told him those things. I had raised him to distrust the Autobots. I had told him that things needed to change. I had told him, all through his life, that he was different, that he was smarter than anyone I had ever met, smarter than me even, that one day he would get a chance to prove that. "Don't let anyone hold you back, Brother. One day things will change. One day they will see what you are worth."_

_"My fault." I whispered. My head fell forward. I closed my eyes, still feeling my brother's glare on me. "This is my fault. I should have told you… I should have explained…"_

_"Save your breath, Brother," my brother snarled. "It's done. Nothing can change that. I have decided my destiny."_

_My head snapped up at the sound of his voice. Suddenly, I was consumed by one thought and one thought only: I had to fix this. Somehow, I had to take this back. And all of the sudden, I was filled with the thought that I _could _fix this. I thought that it was actually possible. _

_Anything to bring my Metalwing back._

_"Listen," I said, fixing my eyes on him. I was smiling, trying to make the words true. "Brother, listen to me. This isn't… This doesn't have to be final. We can end this. Right here and now. You don't have to be a soldier or anything. We can just… just walk away, right now. Just, leave everything behind and go. We'll go to the other side of the planet. Somewhere the Autobots will never find us. We can just walk away right now! You can get rid of those upgrades, and we'll go together, and things will be… will be…"_

_But even as I was saying it, I knew it was no good. My brother's expression had not flickered for even an instant. If anything, his eyes became more hateful than ever. I felt like his gaze was actually boring into me, condemning me._

_"I am no coward, Brother," he spat. "I will not run. I am not like you."_

_That was it, then. That was it. That was all there was to say. I felt myself break. My head dropped forward again; my hands fell limply to my sides. Everything that I had felt up until then, all the fear, the shock, the sadness, the love, was all lost. There was nothing left but anguish. A coward? I was a coward? So be it, then. After all I've done for you Brother, after all we've suffered through together, you think of me as a coward. Then so be it. My brother is gone. Gone forever. He's been completely erased and now only Megatron stands in his place. So that's the way it is. Goodbye, Brother, goodbye._

_I felt myself sobbing, weeping uncontrollably. My shoulders shook with the force of it. I bowed my head so they wouldn't see, but I knew it was no use. They could hear. My voice crept out against my well, breaking out from my throat in sobs I could not contain. I felt their eyes on me, Megatron's and his lackeys, and I felt myself burn with shame. How could I care that they saw me? My whole world was dead, so why was I troubling myself over their gawking? Nothing made sense anymore._

_My fault. My fault. All my fault. My thoughts followed no pattern but this. This was all my fault. That was the only thing that made sense. If only I had… If there was only some way… If only…_

_"Enough of this," Megatron spat. Through the haze, I could see him gesturing imperiously to the other three. "Come now," he said, "We have more work to do."_

_I looked up. "No you don't," I said._

_He stopped. Then he turned. "Excuse me?" _

_"No," I stood up, steadying myself on my knees. "No, you're not going anywhere."_

_For a moment, Megatron just stood there, staring at me. His lackeys were staring, too. Then, a flicker of amusement came into his face. "Oh, really?" he asked, an ironic tone to his voice, "And who's going to stop me, Brother? You?"_

_I raised my head and looked at him, straight into his eyes. "Yes," I said._

_The other three hooted with laughter. I didn't care. My mind was suddenly clear. This was my fault. I had caused this. I had failed to keep my promise. But if all this really was my mistake, then I had to fix it. Here and now, this had to end. And I was the only one who could finish it._

_Megatron had told me that he had decided his destiny. Well, right there and then, I had decided mine, too. My destiny was to do everything in my power to end this. Whether or not I would succeed, I didn't know. But I had to try. I had to try to repair the damage that I had done._

_It was the least I could do for Metalwing._

_Megatron was grinning now, going along with their joke. "Really," he said calmly. _"You _will stop me, Brother? You really think you can defeat me by yourself?"_

_"I'll try," I said, keeping my optics level with his. "If you force me to fight you, Metalwing, I will."_

_The others were in hysterics now. They were leaning on each other's shoulders and slapping their knees and letting the entire smoky sky know their mirth. "Aw, c'mon, Megatron, just get rid of the guy, already!" one of them pleaded, his voice cracking with the strain._

_"I don't think so," Megatron said, ignoring the other's jeers. He was smirking cruelly. "I'm afraid I'm far too busy to waste my time battling you." He turned his back to go._

_"You can't just walk away from this, Brother!" I called after him. How strange. After all that crying, after my voice shattering into a thousand pieces, it was remarkably calm and steady now. It was almost like it belonged to a different person entirely._

_Once again, Megatron stopped. He turned and looked at me. "Really?" he repeated, "And why not?"_

_"Listen, Metalwing," I said, ignoring his question. "I'll give you one more chance. Walk away from this. No more killing, no more fighting. Just walk away from it all, and I'll walk away, too."_

_More laughter greeted this proposed deal. I didn't really expect any different. Megatron's grin grew broader. "Maybe you were stronger than me once, Brother, but now things have changed. I have defeated Autobots far stronger than you."_

_"All those killings weren't from battles! It was murder!" I yelled at him. The others were silent now, staring at me with shock in their eyes. I ignored them. They didn't matter. All that mattered was my brother, getting him to end this. "You didn't 'defeat' any of those people!" I continued. "You killed them brutally, and if I'm really a coward like you say, then why are you afraid to fight me?"_

_I was looking straight into Megatron's eyes. The others were watching him carefully, waiting to see if their god would take up the challenge. They were starting to get impatient._

_"C'mon, Megatron!"_

_"You can take this joker!"_

_"You can't let him say those things about you, lord Megatron! Put the blood-traitor in his place!"_

_"Enough!" he snapped at them. He turned back up to face me, eyes flashing. "Listen to me," he hissed, "You may be a coward and a liar and a traitor, Brother," he spat the world, "But you are still my family, the only family I have. I will not fight a brother."_

_"Oh," I said sarcastically, "So suddenly that matters to you."_

_"It's always mattered to me!" he shouted, gesturing with his arm at the flames. "Always! Don't you get it? Don't you understand! All of this, everything I've ever done, everything I've ever dreamed of, I did it all for you!"_

_"It's not for me!" I yelled back. "It's never been about me! You're not doing this to help me, you're doing this for you! This is your sick, twisted dream, not mine!" I could tell I had hit a nerve. Megatron reeled, as if struck in the face, then looked away. I softened my tone. "Metalwing," I said, "I understand what you're trying to do. Liberate the people, change the world, I get all that. But Brother! Brother! The way you're doing it is all wrong! Killing people, putting together an army, history isn't kind to people who do that kind of thing, Brother. History won't be kind to you. History won't remember you as the one who changed the planet for the better. It won't remember you as a freedom fighter. It'll only remember you as a dictator, as a murderer and a fascist. Is that really the way you want to be remembered, Brother? Is it?" I was staring straight into his eyes, trying to make him see. "Do you want to be remembered as a murderer, Brother? Is that really what you want?" _

_My words didn't affect him the way I had hoped. If they did anything, it was only to make him even more furious. "I am not a murderer," he snarled. "And this conversation is over." He turned to walk away._

_I realized I was going to have to fight him. And this knowledge caused a despair that washed all the way through me. "I made a promise a long time ago," I whispered. I could feel another sob work its way up my throat. "I promised that I would always look after you, that I would always protect you! Please, don't make me break that promise!"_

_"No one is making you break anything," he said without turning around. He jerked his arm ahead of him, and his three lackeys shot one last look at me before walking after him._

_So that was it then. It was now or never. I stared after him for just a moment more before I rose into the air and transformed. _

_I had always transformed into a bird. I wasn't sure what a bird was, exactly, but I knew that that was what I was. My mother had said the word to me, a long time ago, so I had come to know that term. But it was such a strange form; no one else had it. I think it was some kind of creature, one that existed off of Cybertron. It had broad wings that moved up and down when it flew, two claws for landing gear, a sharp object on its face that my mother had called a "beak," and a strange soft material that coated its head and body. No one except for my family seemed to know of this creature's existence. It was the reason I was labeled a freak, the fact that I could become this creature._

_Metalwing used to brag to anyone who would listen. "My brother can turn into a bird!"_

_And now I was soaring down towards him, my claws and wings outstretched, dodging past the three that surrounded him, narrowing my eyes in concentration, willing myself not to miss…_

_Someone behind him screamed, and Megatron whirled around. But he wasn't fast enough. One of my talons found purchase on his shoulder, and I felt his armor give way and tear underneath it. He cried out in pain and raised his arms to shield his face. My claws continued to rake him, chipping bits of white metal off his arms. He swung his fists at me, trying to hold me off, but I kept just out of the way, flapping my wings rapidly in his face so that he couldn't see._

_Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain sear across my stomach. I gasped and fell back. I looked down and saw motor oil leaking out of a long slash on my stomach. I looked up at Megatron and saw that one of the blades I had seen swinging at his sides earlier was now in his hand, an oily black liquid dripping off the end of it. He was advancing on me, his other hand reaching over to his other sword, fingering it tightly. _

_I raised myself into the air again and flew over him, intending to graze the top of his head with my claw. Instead, he anticipated what I wanted to do and rose into the air himself. I slammed into him, hard, and he took advantage of my moment of confusion and grabbed me tightly by the scruff of my neck. We landed in a heap a little further down the path, his fist still clenched on my neck. As soon as we hit the ground, he used this grip to fling me away from him, I landed on my side, my wings flapping, trying to regain my balance. There was a moment where we both struggled to our feet. _

_"Megatron, sir!" one of the others cried. All three of them were looking at me, varying expressions of shock on their faces. They couldn't believe I had actually managed to strike him. The two mechs were glaring at me, brandishing weapons. They began to converge on me._

_"No!" Megatron snarled, rising to his feet. "Leave him! He belongs to me!"_

_"But Mega-!_

_"I said, leave him!" His teeth were clenched. He was eyeing me murderously. "He's mine." The others looked curiously at him, then at each other, but they raised to further objections. They stepped back, waiting for Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, to finish off this traitor._

_"I can't let you do this, Brother," I said, spreading my wings out. "I can't let you continue."_

_"And I cannot permit you to stand in my way," he growled. He brandished both swords in front of himself before lunging at me._

_

* * *

_

**Author's Notes:**

**Greetings and hello! Dragonkeeper here! Wow, it's been a long time, hasn't it? Almost a year since I submitted anything. (Sloppy. You're getting sloppy, Dragonkeeper!) Sorry about the wait. I wanted to continue my story, but life happened, so I never got around to it. I did, however, start this piece over the summer, and have every intention of finishing it.**

**The only trouble is that I'm getting demotivated on this, too. Frankly, I can't let that happen, so, in order to prevent the waste of yet another perfectly good story, I have uploaded Brother's Story here, in order to encourage myself. So please, leave a review if you found this story interesting. It may be just what I need to inspire me to write more!**

**Until next time! - dragonkeeper19600**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Brother's Story**_

**Chapter 2**

_We fought. We clashed over and over again. We each struggled against the force of the other, each of us willing to bring this battle to the bitter end._

_My memories of that night are very clear now, but at the time, the scene only unfurled itself as a series of images. Here was Megatron his sword raised over me, wet with my oil. There I was, flying, swerving away from him in the air, as the smoke from the fires clogged my mouth and covered my eyes with a thin film of ash. Here was the inferno, all of the orange and red flickering lights, burning the very air with waves of fiery heat. And there, for one instant, somewhere in the back of my mind, was my brother, Metalwing, as I remembered him, young and kind, but also fierce with the desire to live._

_I could see no trace of him in the monster that stood before me now._

_Sometime during the night, the thought entered my head that perhaps the only way this could end was for one of us to kill the other. It even occurred to me that perhaps I would be the one to kill Megatron. But what that would mean for me afterward, I could barely comprehend. That night, as I fought, I had entered a state of mind. I didn't think consciously or with any real feeling. It was almost like I was in a trance. All I could focus on was what will be my next move, how can I get to him without letting him get to me. And even those weren't real thoughts; they were more like impulses. I was using only my instincts that night, my mind was lost in the pain and the speed and the whirlwind of fire and smoke._

_Megatron lunged at me, his twin swords slashing at the air in front of him. I flew upward, trying to evade him, but I was just a millisecond too slow. One blade caught my ankle, slicing it along the joint. I screamed in pain as I felt the oil begin to flow from the wound and drip to the ground below. I circled around, looking for an opening for me to strike._

_I took too long. One of Megatron's shoulder cannons raised itself up on a hinge that I couldn't see and fired. A beam of bright purple light sliced the air open just below me. I swerved to avoid it, feeling the heat of the blast as it careened past me and into the night. I wheeled around again and dove down towards him, meaning to strike, but a second blast took my off-guard, and instead, I slammed into Megatron sideways. One wing crushed against his chest, the other flapping uselessly. Megatron took this opportunity and ran his sword across my back. A new surge of pain overtook me. I screamed again and flailed uselessly. Suddenly, a glint of light caught my eye. It was one of the shoulder cannons, still lowering in its resting position. I raised my head and clamped my beak onto the thin metal tube. With an enormous effort I snapped my head up and down until I heard a crack and the cannon was dangling uselessly in my mouth, now completely separate from him. He cried out in pain and fury and seized my head. With both hands, he slowly pried my beak apart. The broken cannon fell out of my mouth with a clatter and rolled away on the hot metal pavement. But he didn't stop there. He continued to pull at my jaws, prying with all his strength, until my beak was as wide as it could go. Even then, he didn't stop, but continued to pull, until we both heard a sickening snap. Oil poured freely out of my mouth as he let go and my bottom jaw flapped against my neck, now useless. The pain that seared my mouth and shot all the way down into my throat was blinding. I was choking, both on the pain and on the hot oil that streamed from my broken jaws._

_I quickly threw myself away from him and transformed. Now, standing before him in robot mode, I was no longer strange. I was now a familiar entity, like so many others before, easily dealt with. On top of that, now that I was in robot mode, my jaw was no longer broken, and the pain was now coming from a completely different source. Now, it was my back that was burning with pain. I felt completely disoriented. I tottered for a moment on unsteady legs, gagging on oil that was no longer there. _

_Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt a blow on the side of my head. The power of it was devastating. I soared backward, caught completely off-guard and landed in a heap a little distance away. For a moment, static crackled across my vision and a popping noise filled my head. I raised my hand and placed it on my head and felt a dent. As I ran my finger over it gingerly, I felt a distinct rattling that I knew wasn't supposed to be there. _

_I looked up, searching for him, and saw him standing a few feet away, looking at me with an expression of cold fury. He glared at me this way for a few seconds, before reaching down and picking up his sword, the one that he had dropped in order to break my jaw. He then locked his eyes on mine and began to converge on me, the blade raised in front of him like a shield._

_Before I could raise myself up, he was right in front of me, the curved tip of his sword pointing against my throat. I raised my chin up, trying to put as much distance as possible between my neck and that blade. But I knew it was useless. Megatron glared down at me coldly, his teeth bared._

_"It's over, Brother," he told me. "You've lost."_

_"Not yet," I told him, "Not yet."_

_"Don't be a fool," he hissed, pressing the sword against the underside of my chin. "You can't honestly hope to defeat me. You're trapped, Brother."_

_I couldn't argue. I was trapped. I only glared up at him silently and waited for him to go on._

_His tone softened to a low growl. "I will give you one last chance, Brother," he said, "Surrender to me now, and I will spare you. Refuse…" He pressed his sword even closer to my neck for emphasis. _

_"… And you will die."_

_A part of me assumed he was bluffing. Yet, another part of me, deep down, knew that he wasn't. I let out a harsh laugh, real or false I couldn't tell. "You'd really kill your own brother, Metalwing? After everything I've done for you?"_

_He was unmoved. "If you force me," he whispered._

_I stared up at him for a long time. Then, I lowered my head, pretending to be lost in despair. He watched me carefully. I still felt the sword against my neck. I knew that no matter what I did, that blade would still bite into me somewhere. But I also knew that it didn't have to be my throat. I would have to be careful._

_I continued to look away from Megatron, pretending to be crushed by grief. I guess I wasn't really fooling him because I could still feel his eyes on me, intently watching my every move. I had to fool him. I had to make him think I had given up. So I did the only thing I could think to do:_

_I closed my eyes._

_Anyone who has ever fought in any fashion ever knows that closing your eyes is one of the stupidest things you could possibly do. It was to render yourself voluntarily blind; it was to take away all the advantages that seeing provided. It was putting faith in your other senses, faith that most people don't have. With my eyes closed, I was helpless, a huge, blind target._

_But I knew that that wouldn't matter to me if I had given up._

_And it was then, only then, when my eyes were closed, that I felt the blade slacken. It lowered itself slightly, pressed itself less severely against my metal plating. Megatron, for whatever reason, was buying my charade._

_I knew I didn't have much time. Once I moved, if I took even a microsecond longer than I needed to do anything, it could mean my death. Quickly, without opening my eyes, I slid down onto my back and curled myself under the sword. I felt the blade slide across me, but the pain was not on my neck but on the side of my head. I ignored the pain and the new stream of oil coming down and extended my arm, my talons flashing, and curled my hand tightly in front of me._

_I felt myself grip something wide and hard. My talons were sinking into a hard surface, cracking it as they went. I opened my eyes. My reach hadn't been in vain. My hand had grabbed onto Megatron's shin plate and was now slowly tearing it apart._

_But Megatron didn't waste any time either. Before I could think of a way to get up on my feet, I felt the blade come whizzing back down again. Without thinking about what might happen next, I rolled forward, knocking myself into his legs. Megatron stumbled, in spite of himself, and stepped back; the tip of his blade just barely clipped my now useless alt mode's head._

_I had bought myself a second, but only that one second. If I didn't get back on my feet soon, this fight wouldn't last much longer. Quickly I opened my eyes and spun myself around on the ground, extending my arm again as I did so. I heard and felt a dull scrape as my claws slid across the armor on his leg. Tiny metallic flecks hit my face. For one moment my vision was nothing but shades of gray and bright, flickering orange lights. Then suddenly, I was away from Megatron, my clawed arm extended in front of me in a low crouch. Megatron regained his balance and then snapped his gaze back up to me. _

_He was seething._

_I expected him to lunge and me again, swiping at my throat with his sword. He did not. He simply stood there, glaring at me, but not making one move to injure me any further. Perhaps he was shocked that I had managed to get away from him. I used this opportunity of silence and rose slowly to my feet._

_"Never," I whispered. "I'll never surrender, brother. Not to you. Not until this is over. I have nothing left to do, nothing left to live for, except this, brother. Why would I stand down now, now that everything I knew has been destroyed?" I felt another sob welling up in me. I choked it down and looked Megatron dead in the eye. "I'll never give up, Metalwing. Not until this is over."_

_Megatron did not react physically to my words. Yet, I saw something sharpen in his gaze, an extra flicker, a flame. And I realized what the last thing Scalpel ever saw must have been._

_"So be it, Brother," he whispered. "So be it."_

_He shifted from one foot to the other, eyeing his prey the way a cobra might, before stepping to the left. He began to circle me. _

_"You are a traitor, Brother," he hissed. "But you are not a stranger to me like the others. You may have broken your promises, but I intend to keep mine. So I promise you… that your death shall be swift!"_

_Then, without any warning, he hurled his sword at me. I tried to dodge it, but I was unprepared; I couldn't move quickly enough. The blade struck me right at the lower base of my left wing. I screamed and took hold of the blade. It did not come out cleanly. The jagged edges… I felt them prying apart the metal on my wing. I heaved my arms forward and pulled the sword out, both feeling and hearing some of my parts hitting the stained ground. I looked up and saw Megatron charging his remaining cannon. I ducked just in time to feel the hot blast sail over my shoulder. I threw the sword away; I had no idea how to use it, and I raised my talons in front of me. Megatron brought out his other sword, and we both rose into the air and dived at each other. _

_We collided, and the rest of the world vanished._

* * *

_That night was the longest of my life. The longest… and yet, the fastest, too. I still remember that time moved in strange bursts, one minute here, one minute there, nothing flowing, everything caught in rushing jerks. First, Metalwing was my brother, the only family I had, then suddenly he was gone, Metalwing was no more and there was only Megatron, a living god among the fire. First, we were talking, surrounded by the flickering glow, then we were in the air, weapons drawn, our oil pooling on the quickly heating ground. First, the world made sense, then it was all flushed down into a whirlwind of nightmarish dark and pain._

_Maybe the other Decepticons realized that their leader was missing, had been missing for quite some time. Maybe they wondered what was keeping him. Or maybe they hadn't noticed at all and were still dancing and laughing in the hot ashes of the Autobots that were now their enemies. Maybe the whole planet, the whole world was watching our fight, or maybe no one knew about it, no one was watching and nobody cared. I didn't know. Neither did I care. All that existed for me that night was Megatron. Megatron and Metalwing and the fire and the smoke and the night that dragged on and on in its strange speeds and stops. That's how it transpired, two brothers in the circle of the flames, aiming to kill. The longest night of my life._

* * *

_Megatron was the one who overtook me when we collided. He threw me roughly to the ground and brought his sword down again. I rolled, but not fast enough. With one swipe, my right arm was sliced open, the circuitry exposed to the open air. Pain jolted up my arm and clawed all the way past my shoulder. I screamed and propelled myself upward, slamming my throbbing shoulder into his chest. He fell backward, and I took the chance to regain my feet. I took the split-second opportunity to glance down at my arm. A mistake. A patch of the armor on my arm was completely gone, sawed away by the strange, jagged edges of Megatron's blade. Oil spurted out of the wound, staining my plumage, dripping onto the metal ground. An entire section of my arm had been torn away; I could see through the tear all the way to the silver metal at the core that I knew had to be my skeleton. I felt the pain in my arm double. My stomach rolled, and I felt, once again, that I was gagging on air. I made a mental note not to look at any of my wounds anymore._

_How strange it was, to see your arm sliced open. To see any part of your body mangled so severely. I didn't dwell on it at the time; that would have surely meant my death, but if I had, I would have thought something like, _That's my arm. That's the same arm that I've always had, in the same place that it's always been. I've had that arm ever since I was created. And now it's falling apart; all of my body is falling apart. And it may never be fixed. Oh, Primus, how am I supposed to do anything without my arm, without my body? It's always been there, always ready for me to use it. And now it might break down. Oh, Primus, oh, what am I supposed to do then?

_But I was in the middle of a fight, and none of these thoughts actually occurred to me. They only lightly brushed against my consciousness, and that was all. _

_I locked my gaze back on Megatron, who was charging his remaining cannon, pointing it directly at me. Not thinking of what else I could do, I ducked; the hot blast careened over my head a second time. Then he held his sword aloft and swiped at me with it. I raised myself back up and avoided that, too. Then he made a move to sweep me off my feet using a kick. I jumped up into the air and moved a little to the side. His leg swept the ground under me uselessly._

_That was the key, I suddenly realized. He was stronger than me and more heavily armed, but I was the faster. If I could just stay out of his way and nick him with my talons, I might be able to beat him. I was used to cutting and running; there was a chance that I might be able to pull this off._

_I crouched down into a ready position, keeping my eyes locked on him. He continued to rain blows on me, with his sword, with his fists, with his cannon, with anything he could think of. I kept my distance, dodging and weaving through his attacks, looking for an opening. I could see at once the flaw with my strategy. Sure, I could possibly get away unscathed, but I also couldn't touch him. I was too far, and he left no opening for me to find, no weakness that I could asses. Before, when we were hand-to-hand, at least I could wound him some. I knew that if I kept this up long enough, he would wear down eventually, but I also knew that this was taking a toll on me, too. I couldn't keep this up forever._

_My strategy was working in one way; he was starting to get frustrated. His blows were coming more rapidly now, and I could feel an increased power in them, in the way he moved, in the fierce intensity that seemed to be contained within. It was showing in his face, too. His eyes were wide, full of the flickering of the fire. His teeth were clenched. "Wretched coward," he snarled, "Fight back!" I didn't answer him. I kept moving, waiting. Waiting…_

_There. Just there. He had tried swiping at me with an outstretched hand when I saw it. There, at last, a weakness. He had swiped too hard and too angrily, without being careful, without covering up his defenses. His entire torso had turned with the power of his blow, and left his right shoulder completely exposed to me. I wasted no time. I used my wings and jolted myself forward, extending the claws of my left hand and digging them deep into his shoulder. He cried out in pain and anger and swung his fist back around, trying to throw me off. I moved out of the way and latched the claws of my other hand to the back of his neck, digging them in, feeling his armor crackle under my grip. My stomach heaved again, but I didn't let go, I couldn't, and my grip tightened while he struggled under me, tighter… tighter… _tighter…

_Suddenly, I felt his elbow slam into my abdomen. I gasped and released my grip, on instinct. He used this moment to throw me off of him; I felt myself suspended in the air for a moment before I landed on the ground, sliding with the force of his throw. I felt my head knock against the ground, and I had to pause for a moment to clear my head._

_That was when I saw it. The sword. The one I had thrown to the ground earlier. It was still there, lying completely unattended. I had thrown it away because I figured I would have no use for it. And I was right, there was nothing I could do with it. I had no experience with fencing. I couldn't use that sword._

_But Megatron could._

_I knew then; I had to get to that sword. I had to get to it, and get rid of it, before Megatron. _

_And maybe I would find some use for it after all. _

_I scrambled to my feet and lunged at the sword, flapping my wings to increase my speed. Megatron saw what I was doing and dived for it also but too late, I had already grasped it. At the same moment my hand wrapped around the hilt, I felt something slam into me, knocking me sideways. I slid across the hard pavement on my stomach, tasting ash, all the while holding tightly onto the sword. I skidded to a stop and scrambled to my feet, doing my best to lug the sword up with me. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Megatron came after me, so I flapped my wings and rose into the air once more. _

_Immediately, I felt the sword dragging me back down. I tried to hold it aloft the way I had seen Megatron do, but it was too heavy; it seemed to actually writhe back and forth in the air in front of me like an eel. Primus, what did this thing weigh anyway? I gave up, and gripped it by the handle, letting the blade dangle below me like a doll, and searched the ground for Megatron. _

_I found him in no time. He was in the exact same place he had been, glaring up at me. I kept my eyes on his form down below me, wondering all the while how this sword would affect my maneuverability, that maybe I should just drop it again after all. For a moment he paused, deciding what to do. Then his expression changed. I couldn't exactly tell, the smoke made the air hazy, and the flames were illuminating everything in a hellish light, warping everything into black and orange shadows, but it almost looked like he was smirking at me. I was confused. Why smile now, of all times? He wasn't exactly winning, so why?_

_Then I saw a small burst of blue flame and suddenly he was in the sky with me, his eyes level with mine._

_I was honestly surprised by this move. My brother could always fly, but I had always been the better flyer. But then, those new wings… I eyed them nervously. I hadn't yet seen what they could do._

_The first thing he did was fire his cannon again. I ducked; that was the easiest thing I could do with the sword constantly beckoning me downward with its weight. He continued firing, a different direction every time, knowing that I would not be able to dodge like I could normally. I tried to move as best I could, but the sword was dragging me down, almost as if it was actually binding me. And the thing was, I'm not even sure that Megatron was actually trying to hit me. He was wearing that same smirk the whole time he was firing at me, and his eyes seem to light up with my every struggle. He was getting a sadistic pleasure out of watching me squirm._

_The blasts kept coming, each one closer and hotter than before. All around me, the buildings burned, the flames dancing across my vision, the smoke swirling into the night sky. It occurred to me suddenly that maybe Megatron was trying to drive me into them, so that I would die in the inferno along with the Autobots. The sword was still swinging underneath me uselessly, and I was thinking that I should just get rid of the fragging thing, when Megatron stopped firing and transformed._

_He transformed._

_I stopped moving and stared, dumbfounded. Since when could he transform?_

_I got only a half-second glimpse of a broad, white jet, the wings strong and folded like a bird's, the one cannon dangling on the shoulder, before he ignited his engine, and the next thing I knew, he had slammed into me, the nosecone jammed into my stomach and we were speeding away, the hot air rushing past me, the pain in my abdomen crippling. I gasped but there was nothing I could do to escape, no time to think, I was being pulled down a rushing tunnel of pain and fire and there was nothing I had, nothing. I was completely helpless._

_And then the tunnel stopped, and the air stopped rushing and I was being slammed into something hard, my head, my back, my arms and legs slamming and scraping against a rough, hot surface with a force so powerful it could have been a thousand blows instead of just one. The static crackled across my vision, and I cried out with the pain that was everywhere, engulfing my whole body. But Megatron didn't stop; he didn't even slow down, and I felt myself being driven still further into the surface of the thing that had slammed into me, the thing that was now doing its best to crush itself against me._

_In a flash I realized that Megatron had driven me into one of the buildings around the square, one of the ones that he had chosen to burn. My back was searing with the intense heat and I felt the hot air fold itself in little waves all around my face and neck. I was paralyzed with the pain, with the heat, and Megatron was driving me ever deeper into the face of the smoking ruin. The nosecone of the jet was still jamming into my stomach, and I felt another stream of oil well up in my throat, threatening to choke me. I swallowed it down, and my body seized up with the pain._

_And that was when I realized the sword was still in my hand. I stared at it, cringing with the pain. How had I managed to hold onto it? No matter. I couldn't waste this chance._

_I gritted my teeth and raised the sword up above his wing, trying to move as little as possible. Megatron apparently took no notice. I knew I couldn't waste any time. My vision was starting to go black as I raised the sword into the air and brought it plunging down._

_I wasn't really aiming for any particular spot, but I felt a crunch and screech of metal that I knew meant that the blade had hit its mark. I looked down and saw that the sword was now embedded deep into the base of Megatron's right wing. Megatron cried out with pain and fury and increased his speed, slamming me still further into the side of the building. I reached out, took a hold of the sword with both hands, and, closing my eyes so I wouldn't see, a dragged the blade through his wing, tearing it as I went, and ground it deep into the side of his chest before yanking it out._

_Megatron screamed and raised up his shoulder cannon. It was pointing directly at my face, and I could actually see the purple light growing brighter within when I felt something small and hard rain down on my head._

_I looked up. Above me the roof of the building was swaying dangerously. The fire had climbed up, all the way to the top floor, and now it had burst through the roof. As I watched, one of the corners crumbled outward and fell, dragging the skeletal frame and metallic rubble down with it. Screams resounded from down below, who was screaming or where they were, I couldn't see. All around us glass was shattering from the heat and sparks were flying up everywhere from the broken metal scraping against itself. One of the supporting beams directly above us shifted in its cradle on the roof, and I felt another rain of hard metal._

_And then I felt the wall behind shift as well._

_I tried to tell him. We only had seconds. "Brother…" I choked. "The building… is collapsing…"_

_Megatron shuddered with fury and the pain in my stomach became more pronounced. I could see why. He had finally gotten me right where he wanted me, and now we were both in danger. How inconvenient._

_"Then you will die here!" he snarled. With a whirring click, an arm extended from the side of the jet and shot out towards me. The jet shifted its position as he reached for me and closed his hand tightly around my throat. He tightened his grip, crushing my neck painfully. I felt myself slipping; everything was starting to seem hazy, far away. As if from the far end of a tunnel, I felt the building shake again, and a series of hot embers cascaded down on top of my head. Whatever was going to happen next, I didn't want to see it. I closed my eyes. _

_The next few seconds were all a blur to me. There was a creak from above; actually, it was more like a scream. The building shuddered and there were clanks and scraping sounds all around as the building dismantled itself, piece by piece, and the debris landed all over the pavement. Suddenly, I felt Megatron start back from the wall, as if in panic, dragging me with him. For less than a second, I was held dangling in the hot air, only connected to the world through the growing pain in my neck._

_And then something slammed into both of us and we went plummeting toward the ground._

_The debris had caught us. The fire had eaten away at all of the building, and the whole thing was coming down, right on top of our heads. I felt Megatron release me, but I was aware of nothing else but the roaring speed of our fall and the darkness closing in on me. I tried to open my eyes, but they felt so heavy, and I felt myself slipping deeper into myself. It was so strange; instead of falling down, I suddenly seemed to be rising up…_

_My eyes flew open. A dream? No. It was the same night, the same burning night. The same fire, the same pillars of smoke rising up to choke the starry sky. The building, though, was no longer there. Actually, it was everywhere. I was lying in it. It had taken the final collapse, and now its smoldering wreckage was everywhere. Hot steam and black smoke rose from the faintly glowing ruins._

_I sat up and groaned. Primus, was I sore. I put my hand to my throat. It was dented, but otherwise seemed undamaged. I looked around. I was back in the square. The blackened, half-corroded skeleton of the building stood in front of me. I stared up at the ruin, looking for the spot where we had been. It looked like it was far up, maybe over a hundred feet in the air. My head throbbed violently, and I put my hand to it. I must have passed out in the middle of the fall. It was a wonder I wasn't dead, let alone still able to move._

_Suddenly, my mind became lucid, and I remembered why I was here in the first place. Megatron. Where was Megatron? I looked around wildly, casting my gaze over each bit of rubble. I couldn't see him anywhere. Was it possible that he-?_

_Then, about twenty feet away from me, there was a shift in the wreckage. I looked over, my eyes wide. The rubble moved again. I got a glimpse of something white…_

_Like a sleepwalker, I rose to my feet, keeping my eyes on that spot. I stumbled over the chunks of debris in my way, not remembering that I could fly over them, not caring to remember anything. Just then, my foot collided with a piece of metal, but not one like the others strewn all over the square. This felt long and sharp. I looked down. It was the sword. The Sword, the one I had been carrying, the one I had lugged all the way into the sky. What were the odds that it would land here? I didn't care. I picked it up and continued on my way._

_I walked closer and closer, each step bringing the white metal a little clearer into focus. What had earlier simply looked like white blocks over the backdrop of my vision now revealed itself in shapes, there a hand, there a leg, there a shattered wing. It looked almost as though he had been strewn to pieces, parts of his body littering the ground. But no, he was still whole, his parts all connected to each other, though torn and damaged. The rubble from the building was lying on top of him, covering him like a blanket. He moved again, only slightly. Maybe the weight was pinning him down. I kept moving._

_Then I was right next to him, looking down at his form. His optics were closed, and his mouth was clenched; he appeared to be concentrating on something. I realized he wasn't fully conscious. I gripped the sword in my hand and raised it up…_

_His eyes flew open. _

_I froze where I was and gazed down at him blankly. His eyes immediately flicked up to me, to the sword in my raised hand. His gaze travelled from my hand and rested on my eyes, and his own widened in fear. But the terror passed from him quickly. His face hardened again, and he glared at me with hatred._

_"Well?" he demanded, his voice a snarl. "Do it! Finish me!"_

_Yes. Finish him. It was what I had come to do. I raised the sword even higher, letting it flicker against the smoky night, before I brought it plunging down._

_And then I heard a voice:_

"Brother! Brother!"

"Brother, I'm right here."

_I went rigid. My hand clenched the sword handle so tightly I could feel dents forming against the metal plating. I began to shake, and the shaking was so bad I almost dropped the sword. I couldn't see; the world around me was fading._

_That voice. It hadn't been Megatron calling me. No, Megatron was still lying on the ground, completely silent, no doubt staring up at me, bewildered. No, it wasn't Megatron._

_It was Metalwing. _

_Metalwing. My Metalwing. Metalwing as a child, Metalwing as I remembered him, that Metalwing had called my name. His face swam before my eyes. His laughter sounded in my ears. Metalwing was everywhere. A thousand images were playing through my head, and all of them centered on Metalwing._

"Brother, here I am!" "Brother, what took you so long?" "Brother, what's wrong with him?" "Dead?" "What's that?" "What's that mean, Brother?"

"Brother, what are parents for?"

_But this wasn't possible. Megatron was right there, right in front of me, and he wasn't saying a word. But there he was, there was his voice in my head, and it wouldn't stop. For one desperate second, I thought that I had lost my mind. I was crazy; that had to be it. I must have hit my head too hard, hit something loose…_

_But no. I knew the real reason. I knew why this was happening, why I couldn't stop hearing him, why I couldn't stop seeing my little brother everywhere I looked…_

_I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill him. Even now, when he was an adult, a murderer, I still couldn't do it. I had been trying so hard to convince myself that this person wasn't Metalwing anymore, that it was Megatron, that my brother was gone, gone forever, and all I could do for him was avenge him, kill this person who had caused his death…_

_But I had only been deluding myself. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fully separate my brother from this person lying before me with red, hateful eyes and his hands stained with murder. Because no matter how much he had changed, even though he had thrown away his past, his morals, and even his name, he was still Metalwing. He was still my brother. Metalwing and Megatron were the same being, and if I killed Megatron, then Metalwing would die with him. Another image flashed through my mind, but this one had nothing to do with Metalwing. It was my own father striking me across the face, knocking me sideways onto the ground. No! I dropped to my knees, still shivering madly with despair clutching at my spark. I couldn't become that. I wouldn't. I could not kill Megatron._

_I would not kill him._

_Slowly, I lowered the sword to the ground. My whole body continued to shudder. I felt another sob tear its way up my throat, choking me as it went. I kneeled there, limply, letting the pain of my body and my spark be felt at last. It was nothing anymore. I could bear it._

_Megatron stared at me, apparently lost for words. He seemed unable to believe what he had just seen. Then, slowly, his face broadened into a crazed smirk. His eyes lit up, and the dancing of the fire was caught in them. He began to chuckle, then to cackle, and then he closed his eyes and laughed at the burning sky. The sound of it stilled my shuddering but darkened my vision even more._

_"So!" he exclaimed, through his laughter. He opened his eyes and leered at me triumphantly. "So, this is it, is it? This is what you've come to? You fight and give everything that you have, but when the moment comes to deliver the final blow, you just can't do it. How typical of you."_

_I kept my eyes down. Every nerve in my body was wailing at me, moaning with pain. The smoke billowed up in the black and red sky._

_"I should have known," he purred. "I should have known that you wouldn't be able to do it. You were all talk, but when the time came…" He laughed again. "And here I thought you were actually a threat! But, no. You haven't changed at all, have you Brother?" His eyes narrowed. "You're still the same coward that you've always been."_

_I didn't answer him. There was nothing to say. _

_I heard a shifting of rubble, and I knew that he was getting up. I didn't react. There was only one way that the night could end._

_There was a scraping on the ruined ground as Megatron retrieved his sword. Then I sensed him approaching me. When I heard his voice again, it was closer than it was before._

_"So, my brother?" he hissed. "Is this the end for you? Have you truly given up?"_

_"Yes," I murmured. I closed my eyes, waiting for it. "Yes I have."_

_But it didn't come. Instead, I heard him chuckle. "As I thought," he purred. I opened my eyes again, confused. Why wasn't he finishing me off?_

_"It's just as well, I suppose," he went on. I raised my head to look up at him. He was bending near me, his face inches from mine. He was grinning at me, a sword in each hand. "If you will not finish this fight... Then I will!"_

_I screamed, more out of surprise than anything else. Not because of what he had said, that meant nothing to me, but because I felt a new flash of pain sear across my stomach that heightened and sharpened the old. I looked down. A second slash had been drawn over the first, leaving a gaping X over my abdomen. The pain was crippling; I felt nauseated from the fire of it, the smell of my own oil. I looked up at Megatron, horrified. How had he moved so quickly? I hadn't even seen him draw his sword._

_I caught just one second, one still-image, of Megatron, crouched slightly, his left arm drawn before him, the blade freshly wet with black. What struck me the most, more than any amount of spilled oil or weapons ever could, was the expression on his face. He was smiling at me; the curve of his mouth was gentle. But his eyes, there was mad gleam there. In the red glass all of Cybertron burned._

_That was all, the last image I received, before I flew backward, an iron, throbbing pain in my chest. I landed a few yards away, sliding across the hot, filthy ground. I gasped briefly, and then looked up at him. I would look at him, the entire time he was killing me. I had decided that just then. I may have surrendered, and I may have been willing to die quietly without protest, but I would not look away. The last thing my brother would see of me alive would be the light slowly dying from my eyes._

_Even now, I would not abandon him._

_Across the square, highlighted by the smoke and fire, stood Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, the murderer of the streets, the one who had set the world aflame. He stood staring at me for just one more moment before he rushed toward me and began the process of killing me._

* * *

_It's a little ironic. Dying wasn't so bad. That part was easy. Emotionally, it was hard, but physically, it was the easiest thing I've ever done. Letting go of my body, flying upward into nothingness, leaving all of the pain behind, there was nothing difficult or painful about it. I simply fell away, with no effort at all._

_It was the process of actually being killed that was the hell. It was… It was excruciating, and it took far longer than I would have liked. I think he was trying to make absolutely sure he had beaten me because he absolutely destroyed me. And I let him. But there was at least one promise I did keep. I kept my eyes open the entire time. The whole time I was being broken, never once did I look away from him. That much, that one small thing, I was able to do._

_But, honestly, it's a little strange. Even though I kept looking at him, I wasn't really thinking about what was happening to me that much. For whatever reason, my thoughts were elsewhere, pulling and tugging me around in a jumble. Maybe it was that I was too badly damaged and could no longer think coherently. Or maybe, after suffering so much trauma, my mind was just trying to escape. But I've often heard that your life is supposed to flash before your eyes before you die. I think that that might have been it._

_At any rate, I wasn't thinking of the fight, if you could even call it that anymore. My mind was lost in my past. Actually…_

_Mostly… I just thought about my mother. _

_Mother. Mother. I never wanted to see you again. I hated you for what you did to us. You and Father made Metalwing grow up without parents. I hated you every single day of my life. I never wanted to believe the reason you left. I refused to believe it. _

_There are so many things I refused to believe._

_Mother. Is this what you saw? Did you foresee my death? Is that why you left? Is that why you wouldn't stop crying? They called my mother a freak. A witch. She never liked sleeping. She had bad dreams. Maybe this was the worst dream of all. _

_Metalwing, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I failed you. I swore I would always stay by your side. And I failed you. And now all of Cybertron will burn because of me. Because of us. I can see it now. A world engulfed in flames. And at the center of it all is my Metalwing. The worst dream of all._

_Please. Someone. Anyone. Don't let this be our future. Please… Stop him. Don't let him keep killing. Somebody. Anybody. I don't care who. Save him. Save Cybertron. Please undo the damage I've done. Succeed where I have failed. And stop him. _

_I've been selfish up until now. I've been bitter and filled with hate. But now, at the end, the only thing I ask is for someone to stop him. _

_The world won't remember me. A miserable Street Cleaner who failed. And I don't care about that. If they forget me that's fine. What they need to remember is a hero. And I am no hero. But you… whoever you are… Can you be?_

_Metalwing kicked me across the square after who knows how much time had passed. I hit something, a curb, a piece of rubble. Maybe it was my own leg. Whatever it was, I flipped over it and landed on my front, supporting myself with my hands and knees. I felt myself slipping, sliding, trying to hold myself up while kneeling in a pool of my own motor oil. It felt too hot and too cold and too close. It hurt; it hurt so much. But now, strangely, it was hurting less and less. _

_My thoughts were jumbling wildly now. I knew I didn't have long. I felt his shadow fall over me. Fear clutched at my spark. No matter how close to death you are, some part of you will always still fear it. But the pang died away just as quickly as it struck. I didn't have much energy for fear anymore. _

_Once more, I felt his hand close around my scarred throat. This time, I didn't fight it. My optic, the one that was still working, locked onto his face. I won't leave you. Even at the very end, not for an instant will I leave you._

_He slammed me against a wall, leering triumphantly over me. Now, here it was. The end. Should I say goodbye? At any other time, I might have laughed out loud. What exactly was good about it? But I felt I should say something. Maybe it was because my mind was so unhinged, so damaged now. Maybe it was insanity playing a factor on my thoughts. But I felt, somehow, it would be wrong to die silently. To sleep forever without so much as a farewell. Ah, but could I even do it? My voice had taken a lot of damage. He's raising his hand. The moment's fading! Quick! Say something! _

_Then, before I could even comprehend it, my lips were moving. My voice crawled out. I said something._

_What did I say?_

_I honestly don't know. My audio receptors must've been even more fragged than I thought. I didn't hear what I said. I couldn't. I felt the words leave my mouth. But what were they? They poured forth from my brain, from the depths of my thoughts, my memories, but I did not know them. They had simply skipped over my mind and flowed out of my throat, like a current. Like a stream. I might have said nothing at all, for all I know. It might have been a flow of nonsense. _

_But whatever I said, he heard. I saw his eyes widen, change. They were eyes of horror, as if now, for the first time, he realized what he'd done. Ah, there you are. My Metalwing. I'd heard you, but now I'm seeing you again. You were there all along. My brother._

_I think I smiled._

_Then my spark was in his hand, and I fell away into oblivion. _

* * *

Megatron stepped back from the wall and relaxed his hands. His brother's shattered spark chamber fell out of one as the corpse clattered to the ground. Megatron looked at the lifeless, rapidly graying husk. Of course, he had killed many, many times before. But it had never been this difficult. Never had an opponent been so hard to kill. He stared at his brother's body, as if transfixed. Even now, in death, the optics were still open. He had the strange feeling, the clawing, suffocating feeling that those eyes were watching him still.

His brother's voice was ringing in his ears. He continued to stare as a torturous, ice-cold feeling engulfed his spark. He had killed many times before. Kill anyone who stands in the way.

Suddenly, he realized he was trembling.

Horrified, he stared at his trembling hands, his shaking arms. He shook all over. It wouldn't stop. "No," he said to himself, to his own shaking limbs. "No!" It was spreading throughout his body; he felt sick to his stomach. He clenched his fists in front of himself, trying to still his rebelling self. "NO!" he commanded, perhaps louder than he'd meant.

Slowly, his body stilled. He felt his vents breathing, passing the air in and out. "No," he whispered one final time, and the trembling stopped altogether. He stood up straight, and any who could've seen his gaze would have seen nothing but stone and darkness in his eyes.

Gradually, from the edges of the square, the three he had had with him before stepped out of the shadows, a little hesitant and apprehensive. Though they had been afraid to intervene, even when it looked like he had been defeated, they had not left their master's side for a moment. And now, fearfully, eagerly, they stepped towards him.

They were around him in a moment. None of them knew what to say. It was the femme who spoke up first. "Megatron, sir?" she asked, her voice a little unsteady. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he answered, without hesitating. "Yes, I am alright."

"You're wounded!" she said, seeming heart-broken by the very idea. She reached out a hand to him. "Do you need any-?"

"No!" he shouted, cutting her off. He jerked away from her. The femme caught a glimpse of the glare in the crimson optics and felt a shock run through her, so murderous was his gaze. She took a step back, her arm across her chest. Seeing her reaction, Megatron's face softened. "I'm fine, thank you," he said cordially. "Don't worry about me." He turned away from her and began moving his shoulder joint with his other hand. He felt that a piece of debris had lodged itself there. He moved the shoulder in a circular motion, feeling it roll in its socket.

"Man, Megatron," said one of the mechs on the other side of him. "You completely destroyed that guy!" He laughed, a nervous, yet exhilarated laugh. "Just goes to show what happens when you mess with Megatron."

"Hmm," said Megatron noncommittally.

"I still can't believe that guy was your brother!" chimed in the other mech. "No one else is going to believe what we saw tonight!"

Megatron's hand stopped on his shoulder. "Eh?"

The mech had turned away and was talking to his companion. "And what was he calling him? Metalwing was it?"

"Yeah. Weird!"

"Wait until we tell everyone about this!"

"No one's going to tell anything."

The two stopped and looked up. The femme looked on, too, still trembling. "Sorry?" the first one asked. "Should we keep it a secret?"

"No one's going to tell anyone anything," Megatron repeated. "Here's why."

And he whirled around, and with a chorus of screams and screeches of metal he struck all three down dead.


End file.
